Dont Be Offended!

Heres a great talk I loved this week!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/10/and-nothing-shall-offend-them?lang=eng

When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.
In the grand division of all of God's creations, there are things to act and things to be acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:13–14). As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we have been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity for independent action and choice. Endowed with agency, you and I are agents, and we primarily are to act and not just be acted upon. To believe that someone or something can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our moral agency and transforms us into objects to be acted upon. As agents, however, you and I have the power to act and to choose how we will respond to an offensive or hurtful situation.

LOVE;

ELDER AMANN 

MAGIC CARPETS

Wow, I dont have much to say this week....

I got a new companion, Elder Hoagland, and we´re the first North American companionship in La Favorita in over a year, we´re just trying not to freeze to death!  Because its getting COLD.  Hope youre enjoying the heat up North for me! 

LOVE,

ELDER AMANN

WE WENT TO MAGIC CARPETS 

BULLYING MICHELANGELO

When something is not the way you think it should be, and you act negatively against this person, this is called bullying.

Even if you don't think you are being mean, the other person can be hurt.

I want to take a stand against bullying by being more patient and more understanding with people who aren't the same as me.  

I have a lot of good friends here who are still in school, kids 15 years old, and to see the kind of bullying they put up with is VERY heart breaking.  No kid should have to deal with bullying, though I have never met someone that went to high school that will say they were never bullied.  Bullying is far too easy.  It's far too easy to make fun of someone who is different than you.  But the consequences can be horrible.  

It's something I have done, but its something I want to stop doing.  If I have bullied you, I am sorry, and I am trying.

Bullying can and especially happens in families.  This might be the worst kind:(  Families are meant to be a force that we have to fight against the outside evil, a safe place we can go, feel comfortable to be ourselves.  I encourage you to always remember that a family is made up of different people, and forgiveness is required. 

There is a HUGE culture going on that is bullying teen girls and boys.  They are bullied by the things on TV and in music culture and they are bullied into thinking that they are not ok.  That they need to change.  They need to be sexy, or have lots of friends, or do drugs.  And this is heart breaking because when they cant be sexy, or dont fit the picture, they get distracted from more important things :(  

Support everyone.  In order to stop bullying, we must do the opposite.  We must complement others, and tell them they are examples to us for being different.  If we know something is wrong, we must turn the other cheek and see their potencial.  The answer to bullying is not bullying.  It's love. 

I know that this is what The Church of Jesus Christ teaches.  

LOVE ELDER AMANN

S/O Elder Mendonca for being a wonderful friend and my best companion yet!

He goes off to San Luis this week, and I get Elder Hogland in LA FAVORITA! 

Elder Agyin and Hermana Murphy go home this week because they finished their missions! I have so much respect for them, they are great heroes, and great kids trying to find the way to make the world a better place.

We went to the university

 and saw DINOSAURS and the MICHELANGELO'S CREATION OF ADAM (seen through the dinosaurs):

BUILDING ACTUAL HOUSES

INTERCAMBIOS WITH ELDER AGYIN

Mis queridos Hermanos,

Today I want to talk about something very dear to most Mormons:  our "standards"...

We live by standards defined by God.  Standards are what the 10 commandments are, and they help us from harming others and to better ourselves.  

But you don't need to be Mormon to choose not to smoke or swear.  So to me, it's really interesting to see why people choose not to do things.  Maybe they've seen rough things in their past that have made them choose not to drink.  Maybe they just don't want to drink because they don't like the taste.  But the reason why someone doesn't want to do something DOESN'T MATTER.  If someone doesn't want to swear, respect that! and try not to swear around them!  If someone wants to swear, that's fine too! and try not to let it bother you, and if it does, just go somewhere else.  

I live by something that I call standards, or rules.  I have made rules for myself to keep myself the way I want to be.  I have made rules not to do certain things, and by not doing these things, I feel personal strength.  I feel more in control.  And you can too!  

But more than anything ... I keep the standards we have been given by prophets because I know they help us love more.  Every rule I have set for myself has helped me love more, and I can PROMISE you that the rules set by prophets will help you love more.  Sometimes we don't understand how personal rules can help us love, but that's why we need to experiment.

Standards help me love by helping me know that I stand for something different.  I stand for peace, and not for war.  I stand for family love, and not gang murder (which is alive and well in all of the world, including Argentina).

But it's important in our age to remember that no means no.  If I don't want to drink, I'm not going to.  And I'm going to do everything in my power to keep myself from doing so.

What helps me keep rules and standards is by deciding now.

"Jesus the Christ, who knew perfectly how to give, set for us the pattern for giving."

"To those whose hearts are heavy with loneliness and sorrow, He brings compassion and comfort.
To those whose bodies and minds are afflicted with illness and suffering, He brings love and healing.
To those whose souls are burdened with sin, He offers hope, forgiveness, and redemption.
If the Savior were among us today, we would find Him where He always was—ministering to the meek, the downcast, the humble, the distressed, and the poor in spirit."  - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I have learned a special secret about how to love everyone.  We must look at them and see their potential.  This is how Christ looks at us.  This is how He saw his apostles, and this is how He saw sinners.  He saw their grand potential.  

I know it starts at standards.

LOVE,

ELDER AMANN

HERE'S WHAT WE DO WITH BOMBS

 BUILDING ACTUAL HOUSES

,AND EL GRINGO HIMSELF.

I LOVE MENDOZA